Confirmation that Rank Group is in talks to buy Gala Casinos for £250 million,
to merge it with its own Grosvenor Casinos business, has thrown a spotlight
on the future of London Clubs International. LCI, owned by Caesars
Entertainment, has long been tipped as a possible target for either Rank or
Gala, yet the marriage of its two putative suitors would appear to leave the
operator of the newly reopened Playboy Club looking decidedly unloved.

Michael Silberling, LCI’s managing director, has worked hard to prove its
worth to his American masters, but, barring a change to Britain’s punitive
tax and

It is understandable that the construction of an air-polluting,
noise-blighting £22 billion third runway to turn Heathrow into the world’s
pre-eminent superhub caught the eye, but the Davies report into airport
expansion also made another radical suggestion: that — third runway or not —
Heathrow should start acting like the UK hub that it pretends to be